#10 How Should I Act?
 

People in Process
 

Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
(Colossians 3:9-10)
 

    All these changes won't come into your life overnight. Sometimes it takes awhile.
    One day, about a hundred years ago, Phillips Brooks, the author of the Christmas carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem,@ was pacing fretfully in his office and muttering to himself. A friend walked into his study and asked what troubled him.
  "The trouble is that I'm in a hurry, and God isn't,@ Brooks replied.
    That's often our trouble, too. We want immediate action when God seems content to move slowly. Sometimes agonizingly so.
    Have you ever noticed something like this? You think Mrs. Brown should have mastered by now a problem that's plagued her for years. Mrs. Brown thinks Mr. Smith should be ashamed of making so little progress in some other area. And Mr. Smith thinks that any real Christian ought to be able to tame a quick temper (like the one you've got).
    People want change to come quickly - especially when it's change in someone else. But Paul says believers are a people in process. Believers have put on the new self "which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.@ Notice the tense! While there is a very real sense in which Christians have been redeemed as an accomplished fact, there is another sense in which being renewed is a process. In terms of forgiveness, your salvation is complete; but in terms of being changed, your salvation is an ongoing procedure.
    This is something that both Christians and critics of Christians sometimes misunderstand or ignore. Paul says being renewed requires time, and it will only be complete when believers stand before Christ. Scripture says when we stand before him we will see him and will be like him.
    We need to understand this about ourselves and about each other. Do you know why? When we understand we're imperfect and incomplete and that we don't have it all together, it's amazing how tolerant we can become of each other. If we expect everybody to be perfect, to have it all together, and if we suggest we've already arrived, then there's no room for making mistakes and every excuse for being hard, harsh, unrelenting, and unforgiving.
    On the other hand, if we know that we are people in process, then forgiveness, tolerance, and openness are in order. If it were not for this, it would be nonsense for Paul in Colossians 3 verses 12-13 to talk about compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with each other, and forgiving one another.
    Because we are people in process, we can respond to each other in gentleness and compassion. We should respect the struggle we're all going through. We should respect the aspirations we have but don't always achieve. We should remember that God is still working on us.
    Some of us like bumper stickers. It seems to me that one of the most appropriate is surely "Please be patient, God isn't finished with me yet.@
  When you come across a group of believers that understands they are a people in process, you will find a congregation with a warm, generous spirit. If, on the other hand, you should uncover a group that doesn't appreciate the process, you= re sure to find a spirit so hard and harsh as to shatter concrete. Or people.
    If you are a believer, you are a person in process. As is every Christian you know. Do yourself a favor and treat others as the incomplete maturing saints they are. Remember, God isn't finished with them yet.
    Or with you!
    How are you at remembering that all Christians are people in process?
 

Thank you, Father, that not only are you patient with us, but you also constantly work on us to make us more and more like you want us to be, Amen.
 

Meditations on Having a Christian Mind
 

1. Read through Matthew 5:43-48, thinking about what Christ asks us to do, how that will make us different from the rest of the world, and how he can expect so much of us. Then pray slowly through the passage, asking God to soften your heart toward those you have a hard time loving.
2. As you read and meditate on Galatians 5:13-15, ask yourself what freedom in Christ really means. How do we best demonstrate this freedom?
3. Read slowly through 2^nd Timothy 3:1-5. As we get nearer and nearer to the time of Christ's second coming, how difficult is it to live a way that pleases God? How does our society today compare with how things will be in the "last days"? How should we respond?
4. Copy James 3:13-18 on a piece of paper and put it where you will see it every day for several weeks. Each time you see it, read it aloud and pray that God would help you to have this kind of wisdom, and that he would change you in one specific way that you notice during that particular reading.
5. Memorize 2^nd Peter 1:5-8, and try to keep it a part of your conscious memory during the day. Throughout each day, whenever you have time to think about it, whether in lines, in traffic, in a waiting room, or on a walk, think of ways you can do these things.
 

~Stuart Briscoe~